


The Love Song of V. Michael Dragoon

by venefica_aura (crankyoldman)



Series: Psychobabble [9]
Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII
Genre: M/M, Pre-Canon, Vandalism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-28
Updated: 2009-11-28
Packaged: 2017-10-03 22:49:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 980
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23084
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crankyoldman/pseuds/venefica_aura
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Veld mumbles poetry and they both depreciate some art.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Love Song of V. Michael Dragoon

**Author's Note:**

> Because Drakon wanted a story with something cute in it. It's about a year before Nibelheim and the Project. Blantant quoting and parodying of T.S. Eliot's "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock".

"In the room women come and go, talking of Michelangelo."

He muttered it because the strangest places reminded him of the strangest things. Veld was thirty this month, and he and Valentine were sitting in the quiet stillness of death that encloses an after hour art museum. He had to admit that his fondness lay more with the written word and less with the gaudy monstrosities that hung on walls and cluttered floors.

Especially photographs. He could almost hate them.

"That is bordering on poetry, are you feeling well?" And the smirk. It had been a while since they'd had a simple assignment with the two of them, and Veld had to admit he missed it.

He half grinned. "There will be time, there will be time. To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet; There will be time to murder and create."

"I thought you only read those tired old nonfiction books that make you feel like a war hero."

If he felt any affinity for sculpture, it would be sacrilege to him to find the makotic crack in such a lovely porcelain bust. "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock."

"What?"

"That's what I was quoting. Never cared much for Eliot; too bleak, too vague. But I like that one for some reason."

"Sounds like he could be your brother. So is that your real last name?"

What a cleverly concealed crack. "You should read more literature, Valentine. What have you been reading lately, Teen Beat?"

Valentine rolled his eyes. "Snob."

"No, I'm honestly curious. Isn't like the old days, you know. Us running around like hooligans and all that."

That kind of shared glance. The women weren't on the scene yet. This place was dangerous, this place where they didn't sleep alone anymore. Someone's desecration of an Alexandrite cross in neon orange reminds him of why they're here.

"I would like to see _you_ of all people try and be a hooligan. Only time you ever loosen that noose around your neck it when you have been drinking."

"I'm not really so old now, am I?"

Tally told him he wasn't old, he was just shy of living. She'd fed him dystopian novels and tried to get him to like that slim volume of Prufrock, but the latter never stuck. Valentine had always ignored such statements of age and wisdom; knowing he had neither.

Saw past the bullshit, he did. "When you are old, I will let you know." _And watched the smoke that rises from the pipes of lonely men in shirt-sleeves, leaning out of windows?_

In order to fight that sense of weight and age and responsibility, Veld kicked over a modernistic sculpture. Artistic crap. People that had been responsible had died and those that could be were still alive and getting promoted. Angry. It was only a few moments before Valentine joined in with making a general mess of things. One wore his anarchy on the inside. The other on his sleeve.

Sometimes it was hard to distinguish the difference.

\---

"You started the shenanigans. I just finished them."

"That's my word."

"That is an old man word. And judging by your angry youth display back there, I do not think you are liking the idea as much as you used to."

"When did you start talking so fucking much?"

"When you started listening."

They'd made it back with the drugs and handed them off to the right people to start the right gangwar so the right region of a city could have a new power plant. His heightened sense of morality was shit today and really it was the kid's fault. Valentine encouraged debauchery of any form and removed his reason.

That was what he told people, at least.

There weren't any women or distractions yet, and Veld wasn't quite ready to shake them out of this. Valentine was being clingy this evening, a tendency that usually followed vandalism. If there had been fighting, they might have been in another state, but they were mostly tired. Maybe a little numb. Things were moving slowly in the department and there were Big Events likely to occur.

The crook of Valentine's neck was warm at least.

"So what have you been reading? You didn't take the bait." Valentine didn't chuckle with sound so much as vibration.

"Schoolbooks. I have been thinking about some classes."

All those years of badgering him about dropping out of college because of some issue with daddy and he'd finally shown some sense? No. Valentine was always a lot smarter than he let on.

"You're trying to tempt me away from a good middle level management job so I'll go teach, aren't you?"

"Now why would I do a thing like that?"

"Office hours."

The kid couldn't hide that he'd thought about it. Veld could hear the purr in his throat. It had been too long since they'd had a mission together. Just them. They came in and out of his apartment, too tired to do much else than sleep and cling and wish that circumstances would change and secretly wanting them to just go back the way they were.

He missed his crazy as fuck partner sometimes.

"Velly?" He'd been in his own head again.

"What, kid."

"You think we can go destroy some ugly fuck art again?"

Fingers through hair. Damn punk needed a haircut. "I'll try to get us back on a mission. Deskwork gets tedious." _For you, the things I would do._

There was no talking now, because sometimes they didn't need to kill something to go at it like heathens. Only in times like these, people might not confuse the connection for a well worn rivalry. Because it had never been about rivalry.

No, it wasn't that kind of connection at all.

"Will you be here when I wake?"

"Of course I will."

"Good."


End file.
